LA Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell
Photo: David Sheehan/FrozenRoyalty.netEL SEGUNDO CA — On June 12, Los Angeles Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell, who missed the entire 2013 season due to complications after off-season knee surgery, posted a video to Telly.com (he also posted it to Twitter) that showed him skating by himself at the team’s practice facility, the Toyota Sports Center, in El Segundo, California.

The video did not specify the time and date that the video footage was taken, but Mitchell appeared to skate with no discomfort, although that means little, since he was skating solo.

Just days before, Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi talked about Mitchell’s condition, stating that at this point, the injury is still career—threatening.

“I’d probably leave it at that now [being career—threatening],” said Lombardi. “It’s possible [that he could play again], but you get into a day—to—day thing, in terms of his progress. I guess it’s safe to say that he’s at least making progress, but the problem is that it’s the same progress he made before. Until we get to those final stages, we’re not going to know, for sure.”

“If you had asked me this six months ago, when we went through the process the first time, I would’ve been encouraged,” added Lombardi. “But given that we had two setbacks, once he got to a certain point, I’m certainly not as optimistic as I would’ve been before. That said, he’s clearly making progress again, but we’ve still got to go to another level, push it, and see if it responds.”